Update: Vlad Duthiers will be on CBS Mornings Friday, Gayle King will be on her previously planned vacation.
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The coronavirus pandemic might be slowing down in the New York area, but it still hasn’t totally gone away. CBS Mornings announced on Thursday that Gayle King and Vlad Duthiers had tested positive for Covid-19. In fact, King was broadcasting from a mobile van, according to co-host Tony Dokoupil.
“So, it’s been a different sort of morning around here at CBS Mornings. You saw Gayle earlier. She is in a mobile van out of the an abundance of caution. She had a Covid exposure,” said Dokopouil, joined this morning at the desk by CBS Saturday Morning’s Dana Jacobson. “While we were in the show, we found out Vlad had the same exposure. So, it’s working its way around and we are negative. We’re together here, and we’re going to carry on the show, and we have a lot to get to.”
Both King and Duthiers are fully vaccinated/boosted.
Later in the broadcast, Dokoupil explained the show’s Covid protocols: “What happens is we come in and we take tests often during the week before shows,” he said. “When we did that this morning, she [Gayle King] tested positive, and Vlad also tested positive, he was filling in for Nate [Burleson] who’s healthy and somewhere else on assignment. Since then we’ve had multiple negative tests, including us, and we are hopeful that everyone is going to end up being in the clear. But we took some steps out of abundance of caution which involved Gayle King being in a van, not down by the river, but somewhere, in a location outside the studio.”
Dokoupil then threw to King, still in the van: “I’m supposed to be heading to Los Angeles tomorrow [for vacation]. I’m still hoping to do that,” she said. “Let me just tell you something, Tony. When you get the diagnosis, it really does — that primal scream you heard from the fourth floor was me because I’ve been so freaking careful. I just couldn’t believe it. Shout out to [CBS Mornings ep] Shawna [Thomas] who had to literally pick me off the floor and just guide me to the office because I had a positive PCR, a negative antigen. Then, we’ve since taken multiple, and they’ve all been negative. Everybody on my team is negative. I don’t even know how to explain this. I just got off the phone with my doctor. She said, ‘Gayle, you’re fine. just put on your mask and carry on.’ But it is very, very jarring, I have to say; day before my vacation!’ I hear Vlad is ok too.”